


Armed and Armoured

by Willowbarb



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire, game of thrones
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 11:39:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18872461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willowbarb/pseuds/Willowbarb
Summary: Jaime Lannister had armed her and armoured her, but he had never given her a shield...





	Armed and Armoured

Jaime Lannister lied to Brienne of Tarth on the night he left her forever; it grieved him, but he could not have told her the truth. He knew only too well that honour would have compelled her to ride with him, and likely die with him, and that was a burden which he could not bear. Anything else, but not that.

He had knighted Brienne, and charged her to defend the innocent; he was equally bound by that pledge. He had not believed that Cersei was pregnant, was sure that it was yet another of her lies, and there had been a multitude of such lies down all the years he could remember. They had come into the world together, and Cersei had always reminded him of that fact whilst demanding yet another thing from him. 

It had never occurred to her that there could be anything for Jaime to do beyond fulfilling her wishes, and, until Catelyn Stark had sent him south with Brienne of Tarth to obtain her daughters’ freedom, it had never occurred to Jaime that there was anything in his life other than to fulfil Cersei’s wishes.

It was safe to say that Cersei could not have imagined he would jump, unarmed, into a bear pit to save the life of anyone other than herself; Jaime himself could not have imagined it before he had met Brienne, and the world had changed. 

And in that changed world he would rather have given Bronn the vast wealth of Highgarden ten times over than learn from him that Cersei wanted him dead so that there would be no embarrassing disputes as to the father of the child she was carrying. She would simply tell Euron Greyjoy that the babe was early, and there would be nothing, and no one, to disprove it. 

Nobody would ever have placed his sister in the ranks of the innocent; she had tortured, and maimed, and murdered, without a thought for anything beyond her own wishes, her own desires. But the babe she carried was, and if his knight’s vows meant anything then he was bound to try to save it, through saving his sister, though he knew that he would fail.

Brienne would understand that, would perceive that he must try, would argue that two people had far more chance of succeeding than one alone, was stubborn enough to follow him if he refused her, and that he could not endure. 

And so he lied; said nothing about the babe and tried, with all his heart, to convince Brienne that he still loved Cersei, even though love had died long ago, and that he wanted nothing more to do with Brienne now that the Night King was dead and their oath to fight for the living was fulfilled. Afterwards he could not even remember what he had said to her, only that in the end she had wept, and when she had wept he knew that he had succeeded in the only thing he could do to safeguard her.

If the gods had been kind perhaps Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth would have died together, fighting the Night King, and gone to judgement together. That would have been a deed worthy of song.

But the gods are not known for their kindness, though Jaime Lannister disagreed; one of them - he knew not which - had given him the words to make a shield for Brienne of Tarth, to add to her armour and her sword, and, as he stood below the Red Keep in the arms of a woman he did not love, he counted that as a blessing.


End file.
